


They Say Purple is Royal

by updatepls



Series: I Love That Lavender Blonde [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, okay, scientifically ill-informed meteorological analogies?, storms and liquor?, what even the hell is this honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 13:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6908575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/updatepls/pseuds/updatepls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel swallows after that, a look of distaste for her own words washing over her, but Sarah knows she isn’t going to take them back. Sarah knows she isn’t going to take them back, and she feels sick. </p><p>(You may notice that this story belongs to a series, however, it is an entirely stand-alone oneshot and is 100% able to be read on its own)</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Say Purple is Royal

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in like November, and I don't really even ship Propunk anymore....but I _did_ write it and it _is_ reasonably good, so....? Enjoy, I guess, haha

Rachel’s clothes don’t smell like her. In fact, they don’t really smell like anything at all. Sure, they have a delicate sort of scent, like soap suds and dry cleaning - and _expense_ \- but nothing Sarah can work with; nothing that she knows. Come to that, Sarah isn’t sure why she'd begun smelling Rachel’s clothes in the first place. As if she could find something of Rachel between the folds, as if she could get to _know_ her.

Because she doesn’t know her - not really. Doesn’t know the things she likes or the music she listens to, whether she’d rather be outdoors during the summer or in spring. But while Sarah may not know Rachel, she does understand her. Has _never_ understood another human being quite as acutely as she understands Rachel, actually. They’re made of the same stuff that the quiet before the storm is made of; each sharp yet brooding, calm yet eternally ready. And once the storm does come, there’s no putting it away. Sarah knows Rachel like that. But whether two storms really have a place next to one another, Sarah isn’t sure.

She throws the blouse down on the bed, leaves the draw she’d opened gaping and skulks into the kitchen, a hand wringing in her hair. She’s aware that she’s pacing, though she tries to keep her motions purposeful. She’s pacing, and it’s the strangest thing, because how do you escape when already there are no bars there to hold you in?

There’s nothing holding her, but still she pours herself a drink. Reaches for the uppermost cupboard and pulls out a bottle of whiskey far beyond her budget. A bottle which, Sarah realises then, Rachel must keep for her. Stuff she realises she's never actually seen Rachel drink herself. To which Sarah downs _her_ glass in one go.

She can feel her hands shaking - her arms, her shoulders, filled with tremors; teeth clenched tight - but she carries on anyway, pouring glass after glass.

Then there really are two storms.

The door clicks open, no more than a whisper, but still it's the loudest sound Sarah’s ever heard. She spins, letting the hand in her hair drop to her thigh. “I— I was just leaving,” and Rachel looks only the slightest bit surprised to see her. She doesn’t speak, merely glances at Sarah’s boots beside the door - unconvinced - before turning her head back to Sarah and giving a light scoff, "But you are _here_ , Sarah."

Rachel swallows after that, a look of distaste for her own words washing over her, but Sarah knows she isn’t going to take them back. Sarah knows she isn’t going to take them back, and she feels sick. Rachel watches Sarah shift from foot to foot - uncomfortable, bracing for the inevitable - but she knows she isn’t going to leave either. Rachel knows Sarah isn’t going to leave, and it fortifies her.

There’s only a little space between them, but still Rachel moves slowly. If Sarah intimidates with rash haste and candid words, then Rachel intimidates with the exact opposite. With calculated pace and sentences laced deliberately. In Sarah, slowness is uncertainty, but in Rachel, it is decision.

At least, _usually_ it is. And Rachel uses it like a shield, uses it like a mask to keep Sarah thinking that she is even remotely capable of sending Sarah away. Uses it to keep herself thinking that.

She raises a hand to Sarah’s cheek, nails gently biting her skin, eyes boring into Sarah's with something like morbid curiosity. An inspection, though an entirely unnecessary one. Rachel could reconstruct Sarah’s face from memory alone.

Just as well, because Sarah swats her arm away in one swift motion, violence in both her gaze and her tone. Spits, “Don’t you _bloody_ touch me.”

Sarah brings her sleeve to her face, wiping at her cheek aggressively, trying to erase any memory of Rachel ever having been there, though she hadn’t left a mark.

But now Sarah thinks she could have _dealt_ with a mark - could have dealt with being pulled close to someone that has begun to dismantle every one of her instincts - because Rachel isn’t doing anything. Sarah lowers her arm, and Rachel hasn’t moved an inch.

Just a week ago, Rachel would have fought back; would have gripped Sarah’s jaw harder, would have hit her back when she'd tried to shove Rachel’s hand away. Would have carried on regardless. That would have been normal. That would have been _safe_.

But now, Rachel just sighs coolly and moves away from her. And Sarah wonders if Rachel, too, has ever smelled a sweater that Sarah left behind. Wonders if she’d thrown it down on the bed, if she’d marched into the kitchen and tried to leave it all behind her. Poured herself a drink.

It is an uneasy realisation, but at the same time manages to make everything that bit easier to swallow.

Sarah reaches for the whiskey bottle, and with what feels like bravery, fixes a second glass.

Sliding Rachel’s measure across the counter, she doesn’t try to stop it spilling upon impact with the side of Rachel’s bag. But she does scrunch her face into an expression that some might read as, _Sorry_ , when at last Rachel looks up.

She looks up, and Sarah thinks she isn't going to take it. For a moment, Rachel doesn't thinks she is either.

But she does. Call it morbid curiosity.

Rachel keeps her eyes on Sarah as she drinks, and somehow she looks entirely natural with a glass of liquor in her hand.

Sarah finishes off her own measure, letting the expensive stuff slide down her throat hotly, and waits for Rachel to do the same. Waits for the tremors in her muscles to subside into something stronger.

Thinks how every lover she’s ever had has pointed out how _central_ bourbon is to their experience of her. Everyone except Rachel. How up till now, she has hated that fact; both that she should be so strongly associated with it, and that Rachel refuses to play along. That Rachel, in her silence, is able to strip Sarah of the very things that define her - and so effortlessly. She’s never mentioned it, never drunk it, never done more than make sure Sarah has her own supply of it.

But come to that, Sarah has never _offered_ her any, either.

So now when Rachel oh-so-deliberately places her glass back down on the counter, Sarah gives no warning before taking one large step and pressing their lips together - harsh. Ensuring that Rachel understands what it really is she’s tasting. What it _really_ is she’s welcomed.

Then she’s gone. She pulls back quickly, open-lipped, and lets Rachel hold her gaze for just one long second. Then she’s out the door.

It slams behind her, and the silence that moves in to take her place is palpable. Just the imaginary echos of Rachel’s glass chinking against the metal fastener of her bag. The sound of puckered lips pulling apart from one another. Of a tentative swallow. The shrill whirring of an ambulance siren far off comforting somehow, pushing the sounds around Rachel’s mind enough that she can no longer focus, and instead feels only the pooling of saliva in her mouth. A reaction only natural to something as biting as bourbon.

And Rachel feels like laughing - _laughing!_ \- because it’s sweet and it’s bitter and it burns. Because she wants to pour herself another.

Because: two storms cannot be sustained side by side, but they can survive as one.

In fact, it is inevitable. Two storms that brush too close together will eventually swallow each other whole, but a single storm destructs only that around it, and never harms itself. It is only the merging that is painful, and never the marriage. Actually, it is quite magnificent.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave feedback! Comments and kudos mean the world <3 
> 
> Stuff you didn't ask for: 
> 
> The oneshots in this series are all essentially just remixes of each other, and the way I think of it is that the events in each story are the same, but occurring in different universes.
> 
> Also the song for this is the Freek Remix of Sexxx Dreams by Lady Gaga - not the lyrics or the title, just the atmospheric quality to it. It has something dusky about it, and that’s the word I use for this series as a whole. 
> 
> (I just tried to find it online and apparently it's not easy, so - youtube.com/watch?v=qpLdSmTfDKA)


End file.
